Friday, May 1, 2015

Karl off

Mild head scratching at BBC News where hunky HR Director Karl Burnett has announced his impending departure. The info comes from James Harding, Director of News, in an email so effusive that it's a puzzle that Karl has been allowed to go.

Karl (Hewett School, Norwich and London South Bank University) came to news in January 2013. His HR career spanned M&S (King's Road branch), Channel 4, Nickelodeon, BBC Vision, Future Media and Radio, on top of summer jobs in Soho production houses. He also found time to be a director of his dad's used car company, up to 2012.

News is in the middle of complex gavottes over redundancies and redeployments, plus the unpleasantness of some staff having to "apply for their own job". Valerie Hughes-D'Aeth arrived to lead on BBC-wide personnel matters in August last year, and has been at Lord Hall's side when the unions have cried foul in some of these negotiations.